If I format my main drive...?

[mutazoid]

I have linux on a USB drive.

My main drive is unreliable due to the a manufacture defect in my notebook.

(Which I will get fixed soon)

 

I use GRUB as my boot manager.

 

On my main disk is used as a windows xp system.

 

The question is if I format my hard disk will this boot manager be wiped out?

 

If so, is there an easy way to install a boot manager without affecting my existing Linux system?

 

Im willing to change boot manager if necessary ;)

 

Thanks

 

Keith

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

[pmpatrick]

Short answer - it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Explanation: You have two possibilities for the location of your grub bootloader - it can either be on your hd or on the flash drive. For linux distros that install to a flash drive, the usual location of the bootloader is on the flash drive and the system bios is then set to boot from a usb device first before looking at the hd. The reason for this is that flash drive linux distros are meant to be portable and must therefore have the bootloader on the flash drive in order to boot. This is probably what you have.

However, even if you have grub on your hd, it won't be a problem. In that case grub is located on the mbr of the hd which is just the first sector, i.e. the first 512 bytes, of the hard drive. The partition table is also located in the mbr. Normal partitioning and formating activities will not effect the grub bootloader on the mbr. In fact, the only way to get rid of grub or lilo on the mbr is to overwrite it with a new bootloader. This can occur when you install a new linux distro or when you install windows on the drive, in which case grub would be overwritten with the windows bootloader.

Edited September 22, 2005 by pmpatrick

[mutazoid]

You rule, thanks for your clear explaination ;)

 

I think your absolutely right in my case.

 

Thanks again.

 

Keith